Originally
posted by
DJBeif:
If it's boring and you just want to cling to the past, then you could just leave the forums as your input has no more validity in an evolving game.
I do not want to cling to the past. Far from that, I want to see the game advance. But not advance in this peaceful, diplomatic, low-risk high reward method/manner called landtrading. This isn't the game I want to play anymore. You'll find me on Primary server, because landtrading is impossible/outlawed there.
To be clear, if I want to go for a rank 1 spot today on Alliance, I will landtrade. Why? Because it is the path of least resistance. But I don't like it. Your argument is that I dislike change/cling to the past/not adapt, etc. That's far from true, every reset, there are changes that we adapt to, from warring changes to formula changes, DR changes, restart changes, everyone adapts.
There are changes I like, and there are changes I don't. Landtrading is one direction I hate to see the game go towards because it undermines the very basic tenets of game design, of the notion risk-vs-reward. I am not adverse to changes, but I am adverse to changes that break the game. A year ago, I pushed very hard for LaF to start landtrading, because I wanted to show qzjul how broken landtrading was because nobody would believe otherwise; LaF didn't want to engage in this broken game mechanic. And we succeeded, that reset, the top 33 countries in NW are _ALL_ landtraders, that prompted immediate game changes to nerf it.
A year later, it is still clear that landtrading is still powerful. Short of me pushing very hard for LaF to adopt internal landtrading in order to prove again just how broken landtrading still is (I honestly don't think this will ever happen, Eugene is very stubborn), there isn't really many ways to prove otherwise. Count the number of traders vs non-traders in the top 10, or top 20. It is broken, it undermines the spirit of the game, but everyone is praising it like the godsend it is that "it is newbie friendly, it equalizes the playing field", etc. How can people not see that it is just "Explore 2.0" with practically zero risks?
I'm not saying that landtrading does not take skill. It definitely does take skill, and top players that landtrade will mostly likely still outperform average and mediocre players that landtrade. But when mediocre players that landtrade start to outperform top players that don't landtrade, then it is broken. It is about balancing rewards so that it commensurate with the risks taken. But hey, weak players are just going to argue landtrading lets them perform better and thus "even the playing field". Sure, it does, but only until everyone starts landtrading and no other strategy is viable, and the weak players remain weak anyway.
I don't look down on anyone that landtrades, far from it. I specifically just dislike the game mechanic, and have plenty of reasons for doing so. People can argue all they want about how it is more "newbie friendly" because it doesn't chase new players away - this is bogus for 2 reasons:
A) The rate of player gain, loss and retention hasn't changed visibly ever since landtrading became common
B) Untagged countries are still going to get farmed, regardless of whether landtrading is rampant - it is free land for the most part, and farming these untagged countries is still the best way to gain land until you are sufficiently large and have the infrastructure to begin landtrading - you don't simply start landtrading from 5k land.
@Tellarion The opt-in thing is exactly what led to today, it wasn't ideal landtrading. People strove to make it ideal, and go to great lengths to coordinate for it.